New Apple TV includes Siri searches, game control capability

By Bob LeVitus

September 21, 2015Updated: September 21, 2015 9:46pm

Photo: Eric Risberg, STF

Visitors experience the new Apple TV system on Sept. 9 during a product display after Apple's event in San Francisco. The new Apple TV will be available at the end of October for $149 for the 32GB version or $199 for 64GB.

Visitors experience the new Apple TV system on Sept. 9 during a...

Last week I had so much to say about the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus that I ran out of space without talking about Apple TV or iPad Pro, the two other major products Apple unveiled at an event in San Francisco this month.

Let's start with Apple TV. Last June I wrote that two features made the $99 Roku 3 streaming media player (www.roku.com) superior to the Apple TV (previous model; still available for $69). The first was voice search, which scanned the built-in channels to make it much easier to find something good to watch. The second was a headphone jack on the remote control.

The new Apple TV, which will be available at the end of October for $149 (32GB) or $199 (64GB), looks to give Roku a run for its money. The new Apple TV doesn't merely include voice search, it includes voice search powered by Siri. And, in fact, Siri is so important to Apple TV that the remote control is called the Siri Remote.

Although the specs for the Siri Remote don't mention a headphone jack, it does have several unique features that make it significantly more powerful than the bare-bones remote that comes with the Roku, even if it does have a headphone jack. For example, Siri Remote has a glass touchpad surface, accelerometer and gyroscope, so unlike the Roku remote, it can serve as a decent video game controller.

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So in addition to being a streaming media box, the new Apple TV also will act as a game console. And, since Apple also introduced the new tvOS operating system and software development kit for Apple TV, you can expect games of all types to be available along with movies and TV shows in the new Apple TV App Store.

Bottom line: I plan to switch from Roku to the new Apple TV come October. I'll let you know which I prefer as soon as I get my hands on the Apple TV.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't say a few words about the new iPad Pro (from $799), Apple Pencil ($99) and Smart Keyboard ($169), coming in November. With its 12.9-inch Retina display and 64-bit A9X processor, iPad Pro has more horsepower than many laptops. Add the Apple Pencil precision input device and detachable Smart Keyboard, and you've got something that could be more capable than a laptop. We'll see.

One last thing: Last week I raved about 3D Touch, which I still think is the slickest thing to happen to the iPhone. Check this space next week for my iPhone 6s review, wherein I'll reveal if 3D Touch is as awesome as it looked in the demos.